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Friday, July 04, 2014

What is the soul's hunger? Where are you headed?

Read the transcript of  Deborah Kory's interview "Thomas Moore on the Soul of Psychotherapy" in which  Moore says:
"I'm not interested in helping a person get along in life, and I'm not interested in helping them improve or get better as a person. That's more of an ego kind of project. I'm interested in the soul, which is deeper.

When someone comes to me for therapy, I'm always listening at a very deep level, because I want to know what their soul is hungry for. I listen to their stories and look for where they are getting in the way of their soul’s unfolding. What is trying to emerge? Where are they headed in spite of themselves? 
When they discuss his new book, A Religion of One's Own, Moore responds:
"I don't think anyone should be confined to one particular system of belief. I wrote A Religion of One's Own to make that clear. It could also be 'a psychology of one’s own.' It’s important to honor the traditions and you can study any branch of psychology you want, but I think if you really want to be someone who is alive in what you're doing and not just following a system, then you want to make it your own in some way. I happened to take it pretty far in making it my own." 
During their talk about dreams, Kory shares one of her recurring plane dreams. She continues, "So often we therapists get habituated to using language that really lacks imagination. Even in this one minute improvisational therapy that we just did, the myth and the story and the way that you responded just now was almost with a kind of excitement. As opposed to, 'Tell me about your sleep hygiene' or 'what are your automatic thoughts?' That kind of rote diagnostic way of relating to clients."

Kory asks about ending psychotherapy with an analysand:
"Kory: Do you tend to see people for a long time? How does therapy end? You don't want to make them better, so how do you know that they're done?
Moore: There's no done.
Kory: There's no done?
Moore: No. There's no done. There can't be.
Kory: I like that."